A Mission Trip to West Virginia

On March 19, 2012, I left St. Louis with 2 vans full of other students and one Jesuit priest. We were heading East to Kermit, West Virginia. We were on a mission.

Saint Louis University has been sending students to Kermit for 15 years for the Spring Break mission trip, but this year the extra help from SLU students was especially appreciated.

Earlier in March, the unthinkable had happened in Kermit and the surrounding towns, tucked away in the Appalachian mountains-- tornadoes touched down and destroyed houses, flattened hundreds of trees and unfortunately killed some people. While talking with the locals, numerous times we were told, "we thought the mountains protected us," refering to the fact that tornadoes in Appalachia are rare because the mountains create a storm barrier. However, this year a tornado made its way over the mountains and into the valley towns. Here is a video of some of the damage taken right in Kermit and neighboring Lovely, Kentucky: Tornado damage.

Half of our student group helped clean up after the tornado damage, while the other half carried out SLU's 15-year old tradition of performing "Cat in the Hat" for a dozen Headstart preschools in the area.

During my week in Kermit, I experienced a life that wasn't as comfortable as my life in St. Louis. Kermit is a poor town in a poor region of the country. They lacked many of the material comforts and even material necessities that us St. Louisians have right in our backyard. For the purpose of this web project, I'll focus on the stark differences between media types and media access in Kermit compared to St. Louis.

For more information about the website author and some more background into why this site exists, check out the About me page.

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